As a Christmas gift from the Darjeeling Himalayan Railways, toy train services from Tindharia to Siliguri will resume later this month with the narrow gauge tracks re-laid.

“We have plans to resume the service to Gayabari with much fanfare. A special train will ply from Siliguri Junction till Gayabari (34 km) on that day. The date will probably be December 26,” a senior railway official said.

“The work of relaying tracks at Tindharia has more or less been completed. We have a plan to conduct a trial run on the newly laid tracks this week,” Divisional Railway Manager (Katihar division, Northeast Frontier Railway), Arun Kumar Sharma, said over phone.

A landslide at Paglajhora on NH-55 in June 2010 disrupted the services from Siliguri to Kurseong. Although trains continued to run from Siliguri to Gayabari, another landslide on the highway at Tindharia in September 2011 had cut short the service till Rongtong.

The Centre had sanctioned Rs 85 crore nine months back for relaying of tracks. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, also known as the “Toy Train”, is a 2-ft narrow gauge railway that runs between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling in West Bengal. The 78-km-long track was built between 1879 and 1881.

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